Member Reviews
This was a fun concept for a book. Hannah had travelled the world and finally settled back in Manchester working for her friend Jess, who had invented a dating app called Save the Date. Hannah is having no luck with dating and Jess is struggling to keep her business afloat so they come up with the idea of Hannah, instead of having a blind date, having a blind marriage i.e. meeting her date for the first time at the altar! This will all be publicised through Save the Date and Jess will choose the groom.
I got caught up in the hilarity and excitement and drama of this story and enjoyed reading it. I've given it 4 stars as I felt the ending was a bit rushed and could have been a bit more drawn out.
A wonderful romantic comedy depicting the trials and tribulations of those brave souls that embark on modern dating! Highly recommended!
I gave up halfway through the novel, it was just too boring. I tried may try again at another time and finish the book
Light, frothy and fairly predictable this book is an undemanding read. But it is also not very memorable, I struggled to recall the names of the main characters a day after reading it. The sort of thing you flip through on the beach (if we're ever allowed to go again!).
Hannah is used to travelling around the world backpacking and decides to settle down in her hometown of Manchester. Working with her best friend on a dating app that needs rescuing. She decided to volunteer to get married to a man without ever meeting him, they first meet at the alter.
I did enjoy this book, it reminded me of Married at first sight tv show (which I love). I did find this book a bit predictable everything I thought was going to happen did happen. Apart from the odd detail here and there. The main characters were all likeable and you found yourself really wanting them to have a happy ending.
This book flowed really nicely and once I was about half way through the book, I found I wanted to finish it to find out how it all unravelled and finished. If your looking for an easy chick lit read, this is the perfect book for you. This book is the sort of book I would read on holiday by the pool.
I gave up halfway through the novel, it was just too boring. The dialogue between the characters was too long and just went off on a tangent.
Good idea bad execution
I love Married at First Sight and have seen most of the UK and US episodes (and am now staring in excited horror at the Australian version). I should have been the ideal audience for this book but the dialogue in the first chapters put me off, I could not tell the female characters apart and was unsure why any of this was happening in the first place. A bit more legwork in the early part of the book might have paid off. Other authors have covered the 'married then falling in love' theme successfully - for example, Nick Spalding's 'Mad Love' is very silly but might have taught this author a bit more about setting the scene and keeping the pace up in those crucial first pages.
Firstly a big thank you to the team at simon and Schuster for my copy to review on netgalley. I absolutely loved her debut last year so was looking forward to reading this.
This is another fantastic book.
Funny ,warm and uplifting. This is a great read especially in lockdown.
Me and my kids was hooked in the summer to married at first sight Australia so i loved the concept of this. Also as a single person whos used dating apps.
But also not a simple love story as it questions what is love? What is happiness? Is being married the answer to happy ever after?
A story of relationships, marriage,friends and family. Also a tale of finding who you are and what makes you genuinely happy.
Published 4th February and i think this will look great on the shelves .
What a treat during this weird time
I thoroughly enjoyed Married At First Swipe. Funny, feel good full of love, friendship & relationships and an insight to online dating. Would you get married at first sight? Great characters with oomph that you get invested in each and everyone of them
A sequel would work more so that we can explore the relationship a year/18months on
It’s such a shame about the poor dialogue in this book!! Because honestly, the plot is pure gold.
If you’ve ever watched an episode of Married at First Sight you’ll totally understand the appeal and suspense involved in the matchmaking of total strangers. Hannah helps her best friend, Jess, save her dating-app by offering herself up for spontaneous matrimony, meeting her match only once he’s waiting for her at the alter. It’s up to Jess to find Hannah’s Mr. Right, saving her company and her future in the process. But, can she also save her friendship and her own marriage at the same time?
I was instantly hooked by the story and had to keep turning pages to find out how it unravelled but, honestly, it was painful to read in places.
The chunks of dialogue are so, so long. I wanted to shout ‘take a breath!’ at the characters every other page. It didn’t feel at all natural.
Because of these long chunks of dialogue, it might also be a world record for the amount of times ‘Anyway…’ was used in a single book. And I struggled to find any interesting or beautiful descriptions or metaphors to use as favourite quotes, because it was mostly dialogue! So I’ve gone for…
“You don’t have to be superwoman on your own, even if you are a super woman to me.”
Meh.
Great plot. Not so great writing.
Married at First Swipe is out February 4th 2021. Thank you Simon & Schuster for the arc.
I really enjoyed this book.
The story follows Hannah, a thirty something year old who works for her best friend who owns a dating app. Hannah ends up agreeing to getting married at first sight ... a bit like the tv show! The story follows the up and downs of planning the wedding and then the aftermath. However in the middle of planning the wedding, he pr best friends relationship starts to suffer. Will both relationships make it?
I absolutely loved Claire’s previous book “Living my best life” so I got really excited when I found out I was approved to get ARC from you.
“Married at First Swipe” is a light and pleasant book. The concept is really interesting. In the modern, busy world people prefer to use convenient dating apps over going out to clubs, libraries, parks and looking for love there. Or “waiting for love to happen“ for that matter.
This book could be a really fresh and exciting read only that it wasn’t.
What I love the most about romantic comedies is... Surprise! Surprise! Romance and comedy.
In my opinion this book lacks those. There’s no surprising twists and emotions, breakdowns and fireworks. That’s what I would expect when two total strangers get married.
Once again I want to mention that it wasn’t a badly written story, unreadable story, It just wasn’t to my taste.
I’m still considering if I should post this review to other sites ie. Goodreads as I really loved and enjoyed the other Claire Frost’s book and I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings and put down others so please accept my honest review on here first. I’m really grateful for the opportunity to read this book.
Thank you to Netgalley for approving my request to read this. As others have commented it is the same premise as some reality TV shows where couples get married having never met. The story is of two best friends one free-spirited (hannah) and one married to her childhood sweetheart with twins (jess). Jess owns and runs Save the date, a dating app which focuses on its subscribers finding long term love rather than hook ups. The app is in trouble hannah suggests handing ove her love life to jess and to a lesser degree her husband. There is very little from Toby (the groom to be) and he is by no means a main character. There is a lot of unnecessary story with very little in the way actual story line. No real drama/action. I read it on the kindle and I don't think its formatted for such as some of the letters between Hannah and Toby appeared over several pages which made it quite hard to read coupled with grammatical errors it was pleasant enough read but no lasting impact from either the story or its characters
The book starts with Hannah, supported by her dad, walking up the aisle to marry a man she has never met, and takes us back in time to how this comical situation came about.
Told from two perspectives, Hannah, and her friend Jess, who is experiencing marriage problems; the story is about Hannah’s unsuccessful dating experiences and Jess’s support in helping her to find the perfect man! All told in a humorous, light hearted way. As Jess’s internet dating agency is also in financial difficulties, the two friends are hoping that finding the perfect man for Hannah will bring in more business, helping to keep the agency afloat.
The story unfolds at a steady pace as new characters are introduced, but I found it slow in places, and couldn’t get to grips with the concept of anyone agreeing to marry someone they have never met! Jess and her husband Tom’s marital problems are also part of the story, as a busy mum caring for her family, trying to run her dating agency, and keep the household running.
I enjoyed reading about areas in the north of England, which are familiar to me, especially the Lake District, and characters were mainly well drawn, though thought that Toby, the prospective bridegroom lacked charisma and sparkle.
The story didn’t resonate with me, although it may do with others.
I requested this book as I wanted something light, frothy and fun, and the description and cover led me to believe this was a rom com.
Sadly this didn’t quite live up to expectations. It followed Jess, who owns a dating app, and her best friend Hannah, a singleton who works for her. On reading that the business is failing, they hatch a plan for a perfect match make- for Jess to set Hannah up with her other half, and they will only meet for the first time at the altar. This follows the trend of the popular tv show ‘married at first sight’.
It felt as if there would be plenty of opportunity for fun, but in reality it is a really slow narrative, mainly focusing on Jess’s own relationship as she experiences problems in her marriage to Tom.
There were so many opportunities to lift the plot line, the author could have focused on the unfortunate men who applied for the groom’s position, or even on the wedding or honeymoon as Hannah got to know her new husband., but all of these were skipped over as we got ever more caught up in Jess’s self obsessed problems- I actually started to find her really boring and dislikeable . We didn’t even start to scratch the surface of Hannah’s groom to be in any way, he was a mere bit part!
I finished the book to see the outcome of the match, but all in all I’m afraid this one wasn’t for me. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Having owned Claire Frost’s first book for about a year now (and it still languishing on my ever-increasing TBR list!] I was excited to read this book - especially having become addicted to Married At First Sight Australia through lockdown!🤣
It tells the story of Hannah, who having returned from travelling and is working with her best friend Jess at the dating app ‘Save The Date’ Jess launched. With the business in financial trouble it needs something to turn it around. Hannah is fed up of being single and dating the wrong men so suggests that Save The Date finds her a husband who she will only meet for the first time on the day of the wedding! Will it be happily ever after?
This book covers love, marriage, friendship and the toils of everyday life which, as we all know, isn’t always perfect. It is an easy read with likeable, relatable characters and I really enjoyed it. Yes it might be a little predictable at times but it doesn’t matter, it’s a really enjoyable read. I will be moving ‘Living My Best Life’ up the TBR list for sure!
Thank you to Claire Frost, Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy.
I really wanted to love this book - I’ve been desperate for a fun rom-com style book, and the premise for this is great fun. It is very readable, and I whizzed through it, but I found myself feeling very frustrated.
One of the things I really liked was the realisation that this book wasn’t just about the big relationship between the to-be-weds, but it would also be about and centre on the relationship between two friends. I soon realised that actually the book didn’t really explore in great depth or detail the growing relationship between the new couple, and instead solely honed in on the character Jess, the friend of the bride. Whilst this could have been alright, despite my disappointment over lacklustre scenes between the couple, with whole chunks skipped out - including the actual wedding and honeymoon, which I thought would be prime character growth time. Instead we go back to Jess, who is having problems with her own marriage - again, the reasonings were all good, but it wasn’t delivered very well, and even though I would be on her side in theory, the more I read the more I sympathised with her husband and disliked her. I also found that Jess, who is meant to care so much for her friend Hannah, is so incredibly judgemental and inconsiderate. She often takes the stance of looking down on her friend and criticising her decisions. Hannah isn’t the best friend ever what with there being very few moments where she checks in on her friend, but I found Jess to be an extremely unlikeable character. Most of the time she acted either selfishly or was totally inconsiderate to her friends and family.
Overall, this is an easy read, with a fun premise. I’m so sad that it didn’t have the result I so wanted. I don’t believe in publicly posting negative reviews, so will not publish this anywhere.
This is the 1st Book I have read by the author if they are anything as amazing as this book I be onto a good thing.
This book tells the story of Best Friends Jess & Hannah, Jess is happy married to Tom and has twins whilst Hannah is single, Jess and Hannah run a online Dating App one day Hannah comes up with the idea to put herself up on the dating app to get married to gain more expose for the dating app company that struggling and get a husband in the end.
Jess go through the applicants and picks a husband for Hannah and hannah gets to meet her Husband at the aisle , What happens next you have to read to find out as don’t want to give any spoilers away.
This Book remind me of don’t tell the bride tv programme as in the groom organised everything for the wedding and the bride has no idea but in case of the book Jess the best friend organise everything.
I loved this book and would give it 5 out of 5 stars,
With thanks to Netgalley & Simon & Schuster UK for the arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Married At First Sight is a book that I was really interested to pick up but not even halfway through, I was already losing my interest. It was disappointing that this book focuses on all the details of Hannah's pursuit of finding a husband through the app and her friend, Jess' help instead of actually about her story of getting married and what made them fall in love with each other. Instead, Its a story about friendship who would do anything for the other and making sure that Jess' choice for Hannah's husband is not a complete bust.
This book is draggy and I was more than ready to be done with it. I mainly requested this book because it got a lot of rave reviews in the description but I feel like I was cheated because I didn't like this book at all. Well, everyone has different opinions when it comes to books so this one is a total miss for me although I really hoped I would have enjoyed it.
I am just really disappointed with this book. I was really hoping to get more from Hannah and Toby but the interactions I got were very minimal. The author even skipped the wedding and goes straight to the morning after. I really wanted to get a firsthand experience of what they both think of each other when they first met but I was robbed. If you're like me and love all the romance you can possibly get, I won't recommend you to read this book.
I did find this book a little far fetched for me. The idea seemed to be very similar to the tv shows ‘married at first sight’. The idea that someone (Hannah) would marry a stranger just to save her friend’s (Jess) business didn’t sit well and for the friend to let her do it was not what you would expect a good friend to do. I really wanted to give Jess’s husband a shake though. The idea that he could be an artist living off Jess who also was the main person running their home with 2 children wasn’t good and for Jess to be blamed for this rankled somewhat.
I hope the errors in the book were corrected before putting it out to sale. I found at least 2 paragraphs the wrong way round and also the authors name used at least once in the book instead of Hannah!